Former mayor of the metropolitan region “Mladost” Desislava Ivancheva was eventually sentenced to 6 years in prison in the corruption case, which began with a spectacular five-hour arrest in central Sofia in 2018.
The sentence was announced by Ivancheva herself on her Facebook profile on Thursday morning, November 10th. At 7:30 in the morning she announced that within thirty minutes she would be transported to Sliven, where she would serve her sentence in prison.
Effective sentences were also issued against the other two defendants in the case – her deputy in the city hall, Bilyana Petrova, received 5 years in prison, and Petko Dyulgerov – four years in prison. Ivancheva has to pay a fine of BGN 12,000.
This is the first serious effective corruption conviction that the prosecutor can claim, even if it is not an official at the top of the power.
The case against Desislava Ivancheva reached the Supreme Court of Cassation after both instances of the special court found her guilty. During the trial, she Ivancheva managed to get pregnant and give birth to a child who will soon turn one year old.
Ivancheva will go to prison for up to three years because she has already spent one year in custody in appalling conditions and another two years under house arrest, which are deducted from the sentence.
The former mayor was convicted of soliciting a bribe from construction contractor Alexander Vaklin. In the first instance, he received the unprecedented sentence of 20 years in prison. His former deputy, Bilyana Petrova, received 15 years, and Petko Dyulgerov, the alleged broker in corruption, received 12 years in prison. In the second degree, the sentences were reduced to 8, 7 and 6 years of imprisonment.
Now the Supreme Court of Cassation has reduced them to 6, 5 and 4 years.
Ivancheva was arrested during a spectacular action by the prosecutor and the KPCONPI in April 2018 in front of the sports ministry in Sofia. Together with her Petrova she spent almost the entire afternoon chained on the boulevard while the investigative actions were carried out.
He claimed he was innocent and the money found in his car was stolen. However, numerous tapes of intercepted conversations were also presented in the case.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of former Energy Minister Rumen Ovcharov, who had been tried for failure to award the Bobov Dol mining concession in 2006.
